15 comments:

What these girls did was stupid not criminal. The time wasted by the police is simply a comment on their increasing incompetence. The fact that they will not persue the false rape claimant is outlined in this mail from the editor of the newspaper:

My reply outlined that comment is free unless we live in a dictatorship, her explanation was simply cow towing to the police. Also that by accepting this they now have at least one woman in their midst who has been given the green light to destroy a man's life and waste police time at will.

Although the girls in this story have in my opinion done nothing illegal as there are only victims that made themselves victims as a concequence of their own stupidity it does highlight that our youth are quite prepared to play with serious issues until it all gets a bit too ikky and then guess what, its always some one else's fault.

Any views or opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Newsquest Media Group The contents of this email and any attachments are sent for the personal attention of the addressee(s) only and may be confidential. If you are not the intended addressee, any use, disclosure or copying of this email and any attachments is unauthorised - please notify the sender by return and delete the message. Any representations or commitments expressed in this email are subject to contract.

We have done our "investigative journalism" Mike and we are happy with the facts. I realise this is frustrating for the public when things can't be reported but we have to adhere to the publishing laws. There is a misconception that journalists can print whatever they like. No-one was named in this story. The matter is now closed.

While we do know the reasons, and they are valid, we cannot legally report any more than that.

For Anons info:

This means several things, but usually when papers decline to report something, it is because it would be either contempt of court or it would prejudice some case in which charges have been laid but not brought to trial.

Usually a paper can report that charges have been brought, but increasingly courts are setting separate reporting restrictions, sometimes wrongly (to my mind) but the authority lies with the court, not the editor. Papers can, and do, challenge reporting restrictions if they think there is a good reason to do so.

If the false-complainant is a minor, she could automatically be covered by other codes of practice about reporting their identity which may not be law in themselves but could give rise to civil action against the paper. As the paper was very anxious to emphasize that they did not name her, this is quite a high possibility.

Another reason the CPS might have decided not to press charges is that there was no public interest in doing so. E.g. special-needs student walking home becomes confused as to what really did happen. However, neither the paper nor the CPS nor the police want the person identified as no useful purpose is served by doing so and might put the complainant at real risk.

Papers do deals all the time with the police and CPS; if they didn't they'd have to give out colouring pencils and tell the readers to fill in the white spaces.

In this case the public are told what they need to know: there is no rapist.

The miscarriage btw was as we saw this week, the police refusing to prosecute my accuser on various grounds. Mainly that she was/is ill. But then as Julia points out every criminal has their reasons its just that in some cases they are a get out of jail free card, in others we can all agree, so the fuck what, if you can't do the time, don't do the crime.